Bruin Boys Repeat As County Champs

The 2026 boys soccer county championship game between Broadneck and Crofton was part soccer match, part rock fight.

For 100 minutes, both teams traded attacks, physical plays and goalkeeper saves. Neither team gave an inch, nor could either side find the net.

As the contest entered a penalty-kick shootout, the question became which team would blink first. The first nine takers didn’t.

With Crofton needing to score to extend the shootout, Broadneck keeper Dalton Bashore gambled on intuition — and came up trumps. He dove low to his left, turning the spot-kick away before racing to his oncoming teammates to celebrate winning a second straight county championship.

“I had a feeling he would go to his right because he’s right-footed and that’s the safest way to get it on target. I don’t gain anything by just standing and reacting, so I had to trust my gut and go with it,” said Bashore, who finished with seven saves in the game, including a stunning triple save early in the second half to keep the game scoreless. “I felt it hit my knee and I was looking for the ball, so I got up quickly and turned to find it. But I saw my teammates running toward me, and then I knew I’d gotten it.

“This is the best group. The defenders know what I need them to do, and I know what they need me to do. These guys are the best group I could have asked for, and they deserved my best.”

Wilson Banwell, Ryan Ball, Hale Verrusio, Julian DiBenedetto and Erik Akhtar all successfully converted their spot-kicks, allowing Bashore to make the decisive save on the 10th and final allotted kick before moving to sudden-death rounds.

Though regulation and both overtime periods yielded no goals, it wasn’t for a lack of the effort required to win the county championship.

“I knew what it was going to take to get a win here, and I think the rest of the team knew what it was going to take,” Verrusio said. “We knew what the atmosphere was going to be like, that it was going to be elevated, and we came out hard.”

Part of what it took was an unanticipated late retooling of the back line.

With five minutes left in regulation, center back Dylan Katzen clashed heads with one of the Crofton midfielders and had to leave the game. That left Cooper Gaver to slide from left wing to left back, and Verrusio to slot over from left back to center back opposite Ryan Donnelly.

Both players get spot duty in those positions, but it’s not their primary role on the team. But the Bruins didn’t miss a beat, keeping Crofton at bay to get to the shootout. The statement moment in the extra time was when Verrusio stepped out to press an opponent toward the touchline and Gaver stole in and snatched the ball away, clearing it to safety.

“We do formation drills all the time, so we can plug and play everybody if someone gets hurt or something,” Gaver said. “Even when I’m playing on the left wing, Hale is right behind me so we’re always talking. It’s even better in the back line because then we talk and work together more closely.”

The win, Broadneck’s second over Crofton in three days and their seventh in a row, marked a high point thus far in their quest to finish the season on a high. Since a 1-0 loss at South River on October 1, they’ve scored 30 goals and conceded nine.

For a team that had struggled to score, something clicked late in the first half of the first of those seven games, a 6-3 win over Arundel. Trailing by two, Bashore made a point-blank save to keep Broadneck within touching distance, then Ball netted twice in five minutes to tie the game before halftime.

The Bruins blew Arundel away in the first 20 minutes of the second half, scoring four more times, and they’ve never looked back. They followed that with a 7-0 win over Chesapeake Science Point, tacking on wins over North County (3-2), Chesapeake (3-1), Old Mill (7-1) and Crofton (4-2) to end the regular season.

Through the county championship, Banwell has continued his assault on the scoring columns, posting six assists and 10 goals, bringing his career total to 37. Ball has eight goals and five assists, while Akhtar leads the team with nine assists. The keeper room has saved 67 of 82 shots this season, led by Bashore with 56 stops.

Broadneck earned the No. 2 seed in the 4A East 2 regional playoff, meaning there’s another potential trip to Leonardtown in the region finals, barring an upset.

Of course, they have to get there first, and the Bruins will face a home test against either Annapolis or North Point in the region semifinals on October 30.

Though they were able to celebrate a second time in as many years at Annapolis High, Broadneck is determined to continue its ascendancy through the playoffs.

“We need to keep practicing well and keep our competitive level up,” Bashore said. “We can’t let this be the peak of our season; we still have things to prove to people.”